Event Details

“Towards the assembly of a synthetic bacterial cell” Bacterial spores, amongst the hardiest organisms on earth, are dormant cell types produced by certain species to protect the cell’s genetic material from harsh environmental conditions. Spores of Bacillus subtilis are encased in a thick protein shell, the “coat”, which participates in conferring the amazing resistance properties of spores. Using a combination of classical genetics and biochemistry, buttressed by cytological, biophysical, and computational techniques, we are studying spore coat assembly to understand how cells build and localize large static biological structures. We discovered that the basement layer of the coat contains a novel cytoskeletal protein that polymerizes irreversibly in an ATP hydrolysis-dependent manner. This protein is anchored to the surface of the developing spore by a small shape-sensing protein that we discovered preferentially embeds in convex membranes. Recently, we have reconstructed the basement layer of the spore coat in vitro around spherical lipid bilayers supported by small silica beads to create synthetic spore-like particles, the surfaces of which we can covalently modify so that they may display proteins and molecules of interest. We are currently investigating the utility of these bacteria-sized particles as vaccine display platforms and tissue-specific drug delivery vehicles.